Right now, a goodly portion of the USA is recovering from a blizzard. Snow is unlike other weather, and the logistics are, well, involved. There was as much complaint during the 113 degree days of summer.

The rest of this post is an elaboration on a rant from a message board. Not stating the stores, because if I did, you might not see yourself in this, because you don’t shop at the particular store.

Their store. Their coupon. Their sale. Their rules.

“They” create the rules. They print said rules on the coupons/advertisements/policy sheets. One gets mailed to each address in their data base (snail or email), or put into each newspaper. If ‘you’ collect coupons from your friends and neighbors, create multiple email or mailing addresses to collect extra coupons, then ‘you’ are the one attempting to create a problem by not playing by the rules, (or in other words, by being dishonest.)

I’ve heard people complain that all the store is trying to do is to get you in there. DUH. ‘You’ seem to be forgetting the POINT of an advertisement for a place of business IS TO DRAW IN CUSTOMERS. The purpose of the place of business itself, for the owner/investor is to make a profit.

“How” they make that profit is not part of this ‘argument’….(as long as it isn’t illegal, immoral or unethical…)

These complained about coupons are no different than your local grocery store ad that you peruse weekly. Or department store ad. (Buy one pair of regular priced shoes, Get one at 5o% off. Purchase 2 containers of ice-cream and receive a box of waffle cones free. Exclusions apply.)

If you spent the better part of ‘your’ parenting life teaching your children the difference between right and wrong, about how it is important to follow the rules, behave fairly and be honest, well, perhaps it’s time to revisit those lessons.

The coupon states (and as I am not calling out any store, I am ad-libbing) “ONE coupon PER person PER day, not to be used on XXXXXX.”

It doesn’t say, sure, run outside, come back in over and over; it doesn’t say, aggravate the cashier (and the customer behind you) as you argue your case about using it on Sale items, or three in one transaction. Or that you can hand your phone with it’s email coupon to the three people behind you to use also. Nor should you be ringing up one item per transaction, cash register hopping, going through over and over, paying one at a time for a $3.99 –before discount—item.

It doesn’t even state you HAVE TO BE ABLE to use the coupon.

‘You’ are all adults. You are intelligent enough to understand that it’s designed to be a loss leader, not a gift to you. You are also (assuming you are reading this on the screen) literate, and can read the sale signs and not bring up something on sale and demand to use the coupon. Something being mis-signed or misplaced is not part of my conversation. (But, the reading of the words on the signs, not just the numbers? Part of the conversation. If you know it’s 50% off, how come you don’t know what the sign says other than “50% off??”)

A coupon or a sale flyer is designed to bring you into the store. Just as the Kleenex coupon cut out of the Sunday paper is designed to take $1 off one box, (of the size stated, not the size you choose to pick up.)

The stores in question during this message board free-for-all carry something like 30,000 to 50,000 unique products. As I have put sale signs up in two of the conversed about stores in my day, I can guarantee you that there are tens of thousands of items that are NOT ON SALE at any given time.

The fact that you don’t wish to purchase any of them is of no regard to the rules printed clearly on the coupons.

As a corollary, there is as much complaining about the fact that discount store quilt fabric quality stinks as there is about LQS (local quilt shop) fabric prices being too high.

Think on it.

(Running now, probably won’t be allowed to show my face for a week once the $$^& hits the fan…)